Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 (4 page)

           
“You yourself saw no white man until
you came to Brooke’s Fort,” Sam teased him.

           
“But I saw you there. I could not
have found a better brother.”

           
“Your talk makes my heart glad,”
said Sam.

           
As they pressed on, Sam felt a great
awe at the extent of the country. How far did
America
reach, anyway? He knew that the French had
settled where the great river called
Mississippi
flowed to the sea. That must be far even
beyond Otter’s
Twilight
Town
, and what came beyond the French? Would
people ever know the whole of this broad land?

           
May, called Planting Moon by Otter,
was well upon them now, and the air was warm and pleasant and the leaves grew
broad and green by their trail. Otter began to peer ahead as they
walked,
his eyes bright and expectant.

           
“We are coming to my country,” he
said. “It is still far away, but I can feel it.”

           
And finally, late one afternoon,
they came out upon a low bluff, below which a broad blue-green river flowed
northward. Otter flung out his arm in a great, glad gesture.

           
“It is the
Big
River
of which I told you!” he cried. “Now we are
only half a day’s journey from
Twilight
Town
.”

           
“Shall we go there at once?”

           
“No, the sun is almost set. Let us
camp here. Tomorrow we will move swiftly, to be at
Twilight
Town
before the
noon
meal.”

           
Gladly enough, Sam dropped his pack,
leaned his rifle against a tree, and hung his powder horn and shot pouch upon
it. Both he and Otter, tired from days of walking, stripped off their buckskin
garments and plunged into the waters of the
Big
River
. They dived and splashed like two boys,
then scrambled out, dressed, and built a fire.

           
Food was plenty, pieces of smoked
venison and some corn meal from the last village they had visited. Sam mixed
river water with the meal in a big clam shell and patted out half a dozen round
cakes. These he set on a flat stone by the fire to bake, while Otter sliced up
the meat.

           
“What are you thinking?” asked
Otter.

           
“I am thinking,” replied Sam, “about
the town where you found me. I am thinking of a young warrior who was my
friend. His name is Daniel Boone. He went to the war against the White Coats. I
was sad because I could not go too, but I think I have found a better thing to
do, here in your country.”

           
“It may be,” nodded Otter, turning a
cake over with a forked twig.

           
Just then something leaped from the
shadows beyond the firelight and flung itself upon Otter’s back.

body
driving against him, then a second impact
from the other side. Two pairs of naked arms grappled him, two pairs of
powerful hands clutched at his wrists, his throat.

           
“Let go!” Sam yelled, striving
against both wrestlers. He almost flung himself free, reaching out to snatch
his rifle from where it leaned. But then a third enemy caught him around the
knees, and he fell heavily under the weight of the three.

           
“Chickasaw—” He heard Otter’s
half-smothered gasp.

           
Somebody was tying Sam’s wrists
together in front of him. Another loop was being tightened around his legs.
Then the grips upon him relaxed, and he could sit up.

           
On the other side of the fire,
several half-naked brown bodies stooped around Otter, making him fast. One of
them straightened up, a bow in his hand. The flames showed Sam a stern, dusky
face with streaks of paint, and a head shaved at the sides. Instead of the
Cherokee scalp lock, this man wore a stiff, bristling roach of hair, like the
clipped mane of a mule.

           
“Yes, we are Chickasaws,” he said,
in bad Cherokee. “And you are Chickasaw prisoners.”

           
The others had securely bound Sam and
Otter at wrists and ankles, and now they propped up the captives, each with his
back against a tree. The Chickasaw leader kicked more wood into the fire and it
blazed up. The half-dozen roach-haired captors looked at Sam and Otter, with
fierce, mocking grins on their painted faces.

           
“You are a Cherokee,” the leader
addressed Otter. “But this other is not like any man I ever saw.”

           
“I am a white man,” spoke up Sam. “I
am of the Red Coat people. You will be sorry that you attacked me.”

           
The leader only grinned more broadly
and harshly. Perhaps he did not know enough Cherokee to reply easily to such
taunts. He stooped and took the knife from the sheath at Sam’s belt. Then he
turned and helped his companions open Sam’s blanket- wrapped bundle.

           
Out came the salt gourd. A Chickasaw
opened it, sniffed its mouth, and passed it to his leader. The leader thrust in
a finger, brought it out and tasted it.

           
“Wagh!”
he grunted to Otter.
“That is salt—good.”

           
Someone passed him the other gourd,
filled with gunpowder. This, too, the chief examined with a probing finger.
Again he tasted, and spat.

           
“What is this stuff?” he demanded.

           
“It will make the fire send out a
sweet smell if you throw the gourd in,” Sam replied casually.

           
The leader half-made to toss the
gourd into the fire, but checked himself. He squatted on his heels and poured a
little of the powder into his palm and examined it by the red light. The other
Chickasaws came to look.

           
“It is a black dust,” said one of
them.

           
The leader looked at Sam again. “I
think you are trying to play a trick. I think this dust is something to make
your fire-weapon talk loudly.”

           
The leader carefully stoppered the
gourd again and set it on the ground, near Sam and well back from the fire.
Then he rose and walked to the tree where Sam’s rifle leaned, with his bullet
pouch and powder horn. Gingerly he took the rifle into his hands.

           
“I have heard about these things,”
he went on, “but I never saw one. How is it made to talk?”

           
“Untie my hands and I will show
you,” Sam offered.

           
The leader laughed scornfully. He
peered down the dark muzzle, turned the gun over and over. Finally he leaned it
against the tree as before, and carefully hung the horn and pouch upon it. He
and the other Chickasaws gathered around the fire, sat down and ate the corn
cakes and the venison. They smacked their lips loudly to show their enjoyment
of this captured food. So much did they relish it that none noticed when Sam
stealthily extended his bound feet and clamped his two moccasined toes around
the clam shell in which he had mixed the corn meal with
water.
Bending his knees, he drew the shell toward him. A moment later he lowered his
feet so that the shell lay hidden under his bent knees. Leaning forward, he
reached down and got the shell in his fingers.

           
A Chickasaw said something in his
own language, and the others all laughed. Turning in Otter’s direction, the
leader translated.

           
“He says that we are good warriors,
to capture you so easily.”

           
“Perhaps we are only bad watchers,”
replied Otter. “Perhaps it is because this is our own country. We did not think
enemies would come after us.”

           
“You were careless,” said the
Chickasaw leader. “A Chickasaw boy can hunt and capture a Cherokee warrior.” He
studied Otter narrowly. “Are you of the Twilight People?”

           
“I come from the east, with my white
friend,” replied Otter.

           
That drew the leader’s attention
back to Sam, who had begun to rub the sharp edge of the shell against the thong
that bound his wrists. He stopped the action, and hid the shell in his lap
again.

           
“You are not wise to be a friend of
the Cherokees,” said the leader. “It is better to be a friend of the
Chickasaws.”

           
“Otter and I are brothers,” growled
Sam.

           
“Otter,” repeated the leader, and
conferred with his own party. Then he spoke in Cherokee again. “I know that
name. Otter is one of the Twilight People. We have a war with
Twilight
Town
.” He glanced at Sam, who again ceased to
saw with the shell. “What is the white man’s name?”

           
Sam said nothing. “What is his
name?” the leader repeated, turning toward Otter.

           
“His people call him Sam,” said
Otter. “I call him brother. He is a messenger from the Red Coats.”

           
“If he is a messenger from the Red
Coats, he must be wise.” Again the leader gazed at Sam. “White messenger, perhaps
we will not kill you.”

           
Sam made no reply. He had now
worried the edge of the shell nearly halfway through the thong.

           
“Your brother, Otter, is going to
die here. You can watch. When he is dead, you will not have a brother any more.
You need not keep the word you gave him.”

           
The leader paused, as though to make
sure of what he wanted to say in the unfamiliar Cherokee tongue. Hiding the
shell with his updrawn knees, Sam labored at the thong on his wrists.

           
“When Otter is dead, we will take
his scalp,” the leader resumed. “Then you can go with us, across the
Big
River
, to our own town. Perhaps you will be a brother to the Chickasaws.”

           
“What if I say no?” prompted Sam.

           
The Chickasaw smiled, as though
Sam’s challenge amused him. The firelight made his teeth gleam white through
the paint.

           
“Watch what will happen to this
brother of yours,” he said. “Then you will know whether to say yes or no to
us.”

           
He had taken Sam’s knife in his hand
again. He looked admiringly at the steel blade, tested its edge on his thumb,
then
whetted it back and forth against his hard left palm.
Standing up, he stepped past the fire toward the tree against which Otter sat.

           
All the others fixed their attention
there, and Sam began to work harder on his bonds. Inside himself he raged
furiously at the way these Chickasaws taunted their helpless prisoners. If he
could free his hands, perhaps he could fling himself to the tree where his gun
leaned. Once he had it, he could shoot down one of them, at least. After that,
he could swing the rifle butt like a club.

           
The Chickasaw leader reached out
with his left hand and seized Otter by the scalp lock. He dragged Otter’s head
roughly forward. Otter did not speak, nor betray his feelings by a single
quiver of his face.

           
“Watch me, white messenger,” the
leader said over his shoulder. “I am going to take a scalp to show my people.”

           
Just then a loud, crashing noise
rose among the dark thickets.

           
The leader let go of Otter’s hair
and whirled around. The other Chickasaws were rising and turning to look. The
crashing noise seemed to churn toward the fire. High and discordant
rose
a piercing, braying cry, as though someone was blowing
a big trumpet and did not know how.

           
“It is Giluhda!” cried Otter.

           
With a wild yell, the leader dropped
the knife and ran into the darkness. His companions raced frantically after
him. Even as they vanished from the circle of firelight, the trees near the
camp tossed and swayed as though in a high wind. Sam stared with wide,
wondering eyes.

           
Something forced its way toward the
fire, like a tremendous runaway hog fighting to get through the stalks of a
giant’s cornfield. Trees cracked and broke.

           
“Giluhda!” yelled Otter again, and
threw himself sideways, trying to squirm away on hands and knees, tethered as
he was.

           
With a sudden, quick effort, Sam
snapped the almost-severed thong on his wrists. He struggled up to his knees,
just as the foliage parted and an unthinkably huge and hairy mass drove into
view above the fire. Sam had a nightmare glimpse of great, white tusks jutting
forth in a wide curve, and two small, fierce eyes
gleaming
their fury.

           
Then Sam had his freed hands on the
gourd of gunpowder. With one hand he wrenched out the stopper, with the other
he hurled it into the very heart of the fire. At the same instant he threw
himself violently backward, rolled over and over, and landed deep among some
thorny bushes.

           
A deafening, bursting explosion
ripped through the night, and for the space of a wink the little clearing among
the trees looked as bright as day. The discordant braying squeal rose to a
shriek. Then darkness was back around them again, and the fearsomely gigantic
bulk seemed to tower upwards, rising on huge real legs and pawing with two
forefeet like the butts of living logs. The monster spun around, nimble as a
deer for all its mountainous bulk. There was a crash among the trees again, and
it was gone in a shower of sparks. Back behind it vibrated a last shrill squeal
of rage and terror.

           
Sam struggled out of the prickly
thorns. They raked his face and hands and neck, as though they did not want to
let him go. He went hopping on his bound feet toward where Otter lay as though
dead. The fire, scattered by the powder blast, blazed up here and there and
showed him the way. His knife gleamed where the Chickasaw leader had dropped
it, and he snatched it up and cut the cord around his ankles. Then he reached
Otter’s prone, motionless figure. “Are you hurt, brother?” panted Sam.

           
“I do not think so. But what
happened?”

           
Sam sliced the leather bands that
held Otter. “That thing you call Giluhda was almost upon us when I threw my
powder gourd into the fire,” he said. “Its noise and brightness must have
frightened him. He turned and ran away again.”